President Donald Trump Orders Airstrike In Syria After Deadly Chemical Attack

Following the deadly chemical attacks that were supposedly ordered by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, against his own citizens, President Donald Trump has launched airstrikes against the country. This marks Donald Trump’s first military order since he assumed the presidency and the first attack organized by the U.S. government against Syria.

According to Fortune, Donald Trump’s command to attack Syria is a surprising turn-around with regard to the president’s claims during his candidacy. During the elections, President Trump made it clear that he was not all for getting the U.S. involved in the seven-year-old Syrian War. The president’s slow pace in accepting the interventionist foreign policy may have come to an end the moment Syria attacked its own innocents.

However, the president found himself moved in the wake of all the children and citizens killed by the chemical attack. According to Trump, the Syrian government’s alleged move against its own people was a “disgrace to humanity” and “crossed a lot of lines.” Unfortunately, the Syrian chemical weapon attack resulted in over a thousand deaths, among many were children.

President Donald Trump did not make his plans of retaliation against Syria known to the public. Instead, the U.S. government relayed warnings to the Syrian government on Thursday. The president was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and from there he made his announcement.

“Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,” Trump began.

“It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”

In light of the U.S. government’s retaliation against the Syrian Government, the president ordered nearly 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles to be launched from warships stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. The missiles targeted a Syrian air base that is believed to have launched the chemical weapons attacks.

Apparently, the attack on the Syrian government took place while President Trump was holding meetings with President Xi Jinping. The said meetings focused on another global threat: North Korea’s nuclear program.

Fortunately, President Trump’s decision to counter Syria’s strike against its own people may have put the new president under a new light. The command to attack Syria depicts Trump as a president who does not fear taking military action when called for.

The American Government and officials made an effort to ensure civilian casualties were avoided as per NPR. Currently, officials are still doing battle damage assessments to determine the overall effects of the raid and collateral damage if any.

Meanwhile, Russia believes that the strike against Syria actually violates international law. Apparently, Russia was given several warnings, informing them that the targeted airbase will be under attack solely because there were Russians at the said base. As a result, President Vladimir Putin expressed that the accusations against Assad being responsible for the chemical weapon attack were “groundless.”

On Friday morning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the strike organized by the United States was an “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law.” He later added that President Putin thinks that President Trump’s actions were based on a “made-up pretext,” which aims to divert the civilian attention from the deaths in Iraq.

However, President Trump made it clear on his announcement on Thursday that the decision to strike against Syria cannot be disputed. The president concluded that “Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and ignored the urging of the U.N. Security Council.”

According to the president, Syria’s attack involved the use of sarin nerve gas which is a banned chemical weapon. He also strongly believes that the attacks were under the command of Assad as per Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

[Featured Image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images]